[Footnote 24: Mente vix potest numerove comprehendi quanta
spolia nostris cesserint. Abulfeda, p. 69. Yet I still
suspect, that the extravagant numbers of Elmacin may be the
error, not of the text, but of the version. The best
translators from the Greek, for instance, I find to be very
poor arithmeticians.
Note: Ockley (Hist. of Saracens, vol. i. p. 230) translates
in the same manner three thousand million of ducats. See
Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 462; who makes
this innocent doubt of Gibbon, in which, is to the amount of
the plunder, I venture to concur, a grave charge of
inaccuracy and disrespect to the memory of Erpenius.
The Persian authorities of Price (p. 122) make the booty
worth three hundred and thirty millions sterling! - M]